Rideable 'roobots' to run riot in Robocon'99

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In Japan, home of Godzilla, Astro Boy and the Power Rangers, competitions between robots attract wide interest and big audiences.

A team of students from the University of Queensland is participating today in

Robocon '99, considered one of the major robotic championships in the world. An estimated crowd of 10,000 spectators, as well as 15 million television viewers will watch 24 teams from across the world play football matches with pairs of piloted robots.

Robocon is an annual competition that has been running for ten years. Every competition requires teams to build robots to do different tasks. Robocon '99 is based on a game of soccer. Two teams of two robots play for five minutes at a time on a field the size of a basketball court, trying to collect and shoot a series of full-sized soccer balls at targets.

"Basically, each robot has a person sitting inside it," said Michael Lewis, the project manager of the Queensland team of four. The pilot of the robot is responsible for navigation, while all other tasks are handled automatically.

"As the robots are limited to 50kg in weight each, it makes the design challenging to have to design it strong enough to withstand the weight of a person and possible collisions with other robots."

The Australian robots are each about 1.4 metres long and wide, and 1.5 metres tall. They are made out of sectioned aluminium and covered with foam and black netting to prevent injuries to the robot pilots Each robot is powered by a series of sealed lead acid batteries

Mr. Lucas, a PhD student in mechanical engineering and mechatronics, said their robots could collect and grip soccer balls in pneumatic clamps before raising them off the ground and 'kicking' them at an optimum angle.

"We're told that it could be a world-first that a fully self contained 12Volt machine is able to run what is essentially an industrial strength pneumatics system in this way, " Mr. Lucas said.

"We've actually got two sets of names for the robots, depending on

circumstance. We've been calling them 'Roobot 1' and 'Roobot 2' for the reference to kangaroo. But because they're so fast and are painted in eyecatching enamel pain - one red and one blue - we've also named them 'Fire' and 'Ice' for a more competitive sounding set of names."

The Australian students raised over $40,000 in sponsorship in order to participate in the competition.